Saturday, February 28, 2009

Some More Quotes That Are Quite Nice

"Create in places you don't know."

I think I might have heard this while I was listening to NPR today. I can't be sure. But the program was about Miles Davis, and someone was talking about how Miles completely redefined jazz in the late '50s with his album Kind of Blue. And more importantly, how he was operating in unknown areas--creative places that hadn't been discovered yet. Which is the secret to his unexpectedness, and precisely how he blew peoples' minds.

So I challenge you to do things that are nothing like you've ever seen before. Take a couple of steps into the dark, have no idea where you are creatively. Don't hang out in familiar conceptual territory. You know when you are. Don't. If you stay far, far away and create in wild new conceptual areas, that will ensure whatever you're doing is new, is the next thing.

Oh, and I would pick up a copy of Kind of Blue and listen to it if you never have. Really amazing.

The "Esses" of Success: Sex, Subversion, Style.

Malcolm McLaren, the inventor of the Sex Pistols, said that. I would call those the esses of any awesome ad campaign as well. Think about all the great campaigns from the last 5, 10, hell 50 years. They all have each of those esses in spades.